New Year in New York

I live in California so do not usually watch the New Year’s Eve celebrations in New York’s Times Square.  They are three hours ahead of us on the West Coast.  This year, however, I was able to watch it in real time, using my iPad and an app called EarthCam.   I saw some singers and dancers, but also crowds of young people in glittery top hats and Covid masks, undulating to peppy music while shaking long yellow balloons.  Then as the clock began the final countdown to midnight, the famous Times Square ball began to drop, changing colors as it did so, and everyone shouting Happy New Year and kissing.  

Looking at the spectacle from the warmth of my sofa, I was glad to not be there.  With thousands of people filling the streets, where do you go to the bathroom? Where do you sit down?  How do you vacate Times Square easily?  No thanks.  

The Year Dwindles Down

My house, so full of people a few days ago, is almost empty now.  Time to take down the Christmas tree and remove the colored lights from the house outside.

Only my eldest son remains and he is leaving for home in Spokane later today.  Then it will be just me, my remaining dog, my TV and my coffee pot.  I can live with that.

A Terrible Year Comes to an End

2020 has been one of the worst years of my life.  I am glad to see it go.

In the next three weeks we may witness the most seditious act in US history, the swearing in of a false and fraudulent president, one who was not selected by the people or by an honest and accurate vote.  The left will have accomplished its long-held dream of overthrowing both freedom and free markets.  The United States will cease any pretense of being a legitimate country or a representative democracy.

My little brother died last February 27.  I have lost both my brother and my country.

How much more can I lose?

Remembering Those Who Die, New years Eve, December 31, 2017

As the year draws to a close, I think about the friends I lost this year.  That's another negative about growing old (I was 73 in November), your friends and relatives begin to die and you wonder when your turn will come.  Not that I'm afraid of death, I really don't fear it at all.

The first friend passed away at age 85 in January, one Lou Woods.  Lou was a far-left Green Party member, and it's amazing that we ever became friends.  I did his taxes for years, and he took a shine to me, always inviting me out to lunch.  He finally got sick and so old that he couldn't afford treating me to lunch, so I began paying for our lunches myself.  Our favorite place was a Japanese restaurant in Cupertino called Kikisushi.

Lou had a pacemaker and his kidneys were failing, and I took him to the doctor at Stanford Medical Center a couple of times.  When his doctor told him he had only a few months to live, he began cleaning out his government provided apartment in Saratoga.  I helped him.  In November 2015 I finally had to leave him alone there, dumping things into the trash receptacle outside his door.  I walked across the green lawns of the development, littered with the brown leaves of fall, wondering if I would ever see him again.  I did, as he lived through 2016,  In November 2016, I drove him to the polls to cast his ballot for Bernie.  Soon after he collapsed and was put into a hospice near Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Gatos.  I went to see him, but he was asleep and I didn't disturb him.  His daughters soon had him transferred to another hospice near Sacramento.  I learned in early January 2017 that he had passed away.  Kikisushi will never be the same to me now.

The second friend to die about a month later was Kenny Chavez, a musician and flute player with whom I practiced and gigged for around five years.   Kenny was only 68, blind in one eye, and loved beer.  When we weren't playing music in our rock band, he could be found just sitting quietly in a corner sipping a beer. He apparently suffered a massive stroke, and died in the hospital that very night. 

The third close friend who died was Gary Elmo Potts, a fellow San Jose State finance graduate from the Class of 1972.  We worked our first finance jobs together, as internal auditors for Fireman's Fund Insurance Company in San Francisco. Two young guys who liked to hang out at Henry Afrika's famous bar (now gone), and who once explored the Palace of Fine Arts in the middle of the night, dressed in suits.  I hadn't heard from Gary in quite some time, so googled him in an attempt to find his whereabouts.  The first thing that popped up on my computer screen was his obituary.  He had died suddenly about three weeks before, in May of 2017.

Death is a part of life, and I find myself thinking about it often these days.

Happy New Year Y'all

I'm ready for the New Year, 2016.

New Year's Eve is a time to take stock.  What did I accomplish in 2015?

• Well, I had cataract surgery on both eyes and my eyesight is now the best it has ever been in my lifetime,  I can now drive at night without killing myself.  And, it's nice to see the world in high definition.
• My bass playing improved substantially, and playing jazz has become comprehensible, and not the mystery it was only one year ago.  I plan to continue my mastery of bass.  That will be my biggest goal for the new year.  
• I increased my knowledge of taxation (and my disgust with our tax system grew right along with it) and my knowledge of Lacerte tax software, the most popular program for tax accountants, which makes me more marketable for seasonal tax work.
• I read some good books on the War for Southern Independence, and armed myself with great facts for refuting Yankees and other purveyors of the Northern Myth.  I have two more books on the way, and will no doubt spend New Year's Day reading one of them.

And that's about it.

We are having friends over this evening to eat goodies and drink bubbly stuff and have conversations and watch the ball drop on television, welcoming in the new year.  It should be mildly fun.

Here's hoping you have a great New Year's Eve and a happy 2016.

Barack Obama's Last Year In Office -- My Thoughts

Tomorrow begins Barack Obama's last year in office.  Thank God.  He surely qualifies as one of the most damaging and destructive presidents in U.S. history.  Some folks say that 2016 will be "the end of an error," and that Obama's presidency was "One Big Ass Mistake America, O.B.A.M.A."  Yes, they are right.

It is scary and surprising that American freedom is so fragile and precarious, so easily swept away by cultural fads like electing the "first African-American President," without giving much weight, if any, to his philosophical underpinnings, his lack of experience and wisdom, his radical ideology.  As a president, Barack Obama has been a disaster, doubling the national debt, weakening the military, damaging the economy with his foolish health care plan (which doubled the cost of health care while reducing the coverage for most Americans), his opposition to domestic energy production, his naive moral and other support for Islam, his flooding the country with third world immigrants, thus increasing crime and welfare dependency but increasing the voting base for the Democratic Party, which was his main objective all along.

In 2016, Obama will do his best to further his leftist goals, including more wealth redistribution schemes, using taxes from productive citizens to buy the votes of the non-productive, import more low-skilled immigrants from Mexico and the Middle East, regardless of the economic cost for the former and the terrorism danger from the latter.  The Republican Party has become a joke, and will not seriously oppose Obama's policies.

One more year.  Let us survive it with as little damage as possible, until January 2017, when we will finally be rid of this incompetent, radical ideologue, and perhaps finally able to begin repairing the damage and destruction that his presidency has wrought.

New Year Thoughts: Happy 2015!

Two-thousand fifteen has a nice ring to it.  Many of us feel hopeful on the first day of the year.  Maybe this year will be better than the last.  Maybe not.

The political problems seem severe:  the worst race relations in decades.  Riots, the knock-out game, widespread wildings of young blacks, the hateful anti-police movement -- all worry me.

The good news includes falling gasoline prices, a shot in the arm to the economy, and the fact that a Republican majority will preside over both the Senate and the House.  The odious Harry Reid will no longer be Senate Majority Leader.

For the past four weeks I have been applying for jobs with various tax preparation firms, and was offered a job by two different CPA firms just this week.  The pay rate offered is reasonable and will pay some bills.  My economic situation will be a big improvement over the past six years.  I accepted a job with a firm in Campbell, California and look forward to the tax season.

Here is wishing all conservatives a happy and prosperous New Year!

The After-Christmas Mindset: Put Away The Ornaments, Time To Get To Work!

Funny, when the clock strikes midnight on the morning of December 26, Christmas ends abruptly.  Now all those candy canes, Christmas lights, Christmas trees, Christmas songs, and various other holiday hoopla seem so passe.  My son, his wife and two dogs left for Los Angeles this morning, and the house seems empty now.  However, I won't complain.  I really enjoyed this Christmas season.

Now the warm fuzzy feelings of holiday cheer are replaced with a more serious focus, getting back to work, defeating progressivism in all its forms, making money, paying bills.  I really need a hard shell case for my string bass, to prevent bumps, scratches and bruises when transporting it to practice.  The case costs around $400, with $200 more for freight, if I buy it online.  However, my bass is worth around $4,000, and I need to protect my investment.

I am looking for new employment for the coming tax season, and have had several interviews, with another one scheduled for Monday.  All seem interested in hiring me, so I just have to pick out the one that suits me best:  paywise, and proximity to home to limit the commute.

I am scheduled for cataract surgery in the middle of January.  Not looking forward to the surgery, but it will be nice to see clearly again.